


temperance

by forpeaches (bluecarrot)



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-22
Updated: 2019-08-22
Packaged: 2020-09-23 17:11:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20343709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluecarrot/pseuds/forpeaches
Summary: Jaime leaves — again — and Brienne is full of all the things that he could not say.





	temperance

**Author's Note:**

> written 21 august 2019.

Jaime is reasonably well-acquainted with his own feelings by now. He ought to be. She’s been patient with him — more than patient, while he mocked and shamed and scolded and fucked around, thinking all the while

_Brienne_

like a echo to his words, a second beat to his footsteps.

She hears it.

Disregards it.

I need to pass the seige lines, Brienne told him in his red tent, and he shrugged and allowed it. What could he do? What can he tell her that she doesn’t already know? _For fuck’s sake stay out of trouble and keep yourself alive_ is a very sensible thing to say to a knight but she’d murder him.

And Jaime doesn’t want to die yet.

Not yet, he thinks, looking at her. I can’t die yet. There are things to do.

Why are you following me? she’d snapped. Don’t you have anything to do?

I wanted to help you.

You think I need help?

No. I don’t. You’re ridiculously capable.

She’d turned to face him then, all snap and fire, looking ready to knock him down: All right. What is all this? Why are you mocking me?

I’m not!

Well — then — don’t, she said. Make yourself useful, for once.

So he did. Does. Anything to keep busy, anything to keep his mind off her. Keep his hands off her.

In the dragon pits then, he hears again the thrum between them, a string held taut and ready to sing out.

Cersei looks at them. Sees Jaime staring. You and I, we’re the same, she always said, kissing him on the mouth again and again. My window. My mirror.

And it’s true: he sees what she sees

the way he loves Brienne without meaning to do it

she is so damned beautiful, all tension and anger and bright shining honor

and he sees himself, stepping near Brienne simply to be near her. He needs to be near. He needs to see again her blood rise in argument, saying I know we’re loyal to — to different flags and banners ...

Oh, fuck that, she says. _Fuck_ loyalty. 

He didn’t hear that right.

She goes on. We need to find a way to stay alive. You need to talk to the Queen.

And tell her what? says Jaime. What do you think she doesn’t know?

*

Jaime leaves — again — and Brienne is full of all the things he could not say.

He is impatient. Always impatient. If he didn’t earn knighthood by sixteen he would have given up, maybe.

How can anyone have lived so long and understand so little of waiting?

Brienne doesn’t give up, not ever. Not on herself and not on Jaime. Not on anyone she loves. Some day they will be together — in a bed, in a tent, in a cave for all she knows or cares. They’ll fit together perfectly, as they do now. She’ll swell with his child, she thinks, in that far-off world, and he will look at her then like he looks at her today: unsure, frightened, brave. Wanting and proud.

Listen, she wants to tell him.

She’ll hold his head against her body and run her hands through his hair again and again, soothing and quieting them both.

Listen to the fire, Jaime. Listen to the rain.

He’ll complain a while, he always wants to talk too much, but she will simply not reply and at last he’d give in, and she will say — what?

She’ll tell him about home. On Tarth, even the rain is different.

Rain is rain, Jaime says.

There’s a tree, Brienne says, ignoring him. I sat in there as a child, high in the branches. The leaves are so thick and close and green, no one could see me. It’s full of little ants who crawl over me going about their business, and now and then a storm comes and drips down overhead. The individual leaves close up tight; when it passes, they open up slowly, one by one, trembling and unsure.

Jaime will raise his head then, with that expression she knows from years going back — that she saw again today — like he’s lost all his courage, like he is helpless and far from home, lost.

Don’t be afraid, she will say. It’s only a storm. We can wait for it to pass.


End file.
